Arts Festival is back with a bang!

“I wanted this year’s Festival to be joyous and have an element of fun after the last couple of years,” says the Artistic Director of Galway International Arts Festival, Paul Fahy as the 2022 programme was launched this week.

While the event contains thought-provoking and serious elements, it’s a celebration of arts and community in the wake of Covid lockdowns, he explains of the first full-scale Arts Festival since 2019.

A theatrical highlight is the return to Galway of Chicago’s renowned Steppenwolf Theatre, after a 15-year absence. They’ll perform Sam Shepard’s True West, the play which catapulted them onto the American scene when they first staged it in 1982.

New to Galway is New York-based illusionist Geoff Sobelle with Home, a spectacle involving illusion, choreography, music and storytelling as it explores the everyday drama of what makes a house a home.

“Within 60 seconds of appearing on stage, he has made a home,” says Paul of this major illusionist whom he first saw at the Edinburgh Festival in 2005 and has wanted to bring to Galway ever since.

“What makes a house a home is a relevant question given the housing situation in Ireland and the migration of so many people across Europe,” says Paul, adding that “Home is also really magical, a festival show”.

“It’s one of the more demanding shows technically and we’ll have a crew of 30 people working on it, in addition to the core crew which will come with the company,” he explains.

Galway’s Druid is premiering The Last Return, a new work by Sonya Kelly. It’s a comedy about conflict, peace and the pursuit of territory, directed by Sara Joyce.

Meanwhile, Landmark Productions and Irish National Opera present the First Child, the third in a series of contemporary operas from composer Donnacha Dennehy and writer and director Enda Walsh.

Get details of the full GIAF programme in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now – or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie